A Tale of Two Guitars

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And now, the guitar that saved Dave Wakeling's son's life two years ago. Adam Wakeling, then 17, was coming home from a guitar lesson one night on a bicycle when a car's front end slammed into him. Adam bounced up off the roof and then landed, hard.

His guitar, in a case, was strapped around his back and neck so that, by happenstance, the neck of the guitar protected his own neck, and, the doctors told him later, kept it from snapping completely apart.

"I have it here," says Wakeling, of the busted-up guitar. "It's smashed pretty well at the one end of the neck. The bruising pattern on Adam's neck was the exact evidence the hospital staff observed and noted. The guitar's stiffness and padding in the case acted like a backboard and saved his life.

"They kept him on the sidewalk and didn't know how to move him. I don't think they thought he was going to be alive when he went to the hospital. They said he would be completely vegetative, unlikely to wake up."

As it is, Adam Wakeling - who was taking lessons for classical guitar and was playing in his first rock band - is a now quadriplegic. He can move the third finger on one hand. He cannot speak. He is 19.

"It was difficult to know what to do with the first few weeks," says Wakeling, "I went to a Buddhist temple - I'm sort of a weekend Buddhist - but I wasn't sure what to be praying for: for him to survive, or for him to let go if that was the right thing to do. I ended up sort of hedging my bets. But the bloke who led the Buddhist temple said, '"No, no, no, pray for his complete recovery,' so I did. Prayer is one of the things that's continual between Los Angeles and London, I can chant little prayers into the clouds. Buddhism gives me a great sense of comfort, more than any other philosophy."

Adam was in a coma for six months following the accident, but he came out of it. "And he started to get stronger and stronger," says Wakeling. "Now, a good time later, he's sitting up, he's conscious," He can spell out what's on his mind on an alphabet card with one finger in English or in French. He was full of sarcasm and cynicism, as expected from a teenager - he had that before the accident. But he's also caring and compassionate.

Most likely Adam will live in some assisted living facility all his life. But with young people, recovery often outreaches expectation and hope. He may get some functions back that he did lose completely. His memory is coming back. In the age of computers, he has so much opportunity with just one finger. "We're going to start working with him, so he can create a whole orchestra with samples and drumbeats. He'll be able to compose if he's got songs. But I don't suppose he'll ever be a fully independent character; however big the 'miracle' part of it," says Dave.

How has Adam's situation changed Dave as a father? "I always used to feel embarrassed seeing parents with a kid in a wheelchair. It made you want to look away; Now, I look at it differently. Those parents are absolutely ecstatic; they thought their kid was going to die!" Wakeling says when he passes a kid in a chair now, he gives him a big smile and a thumbs up.

Before the accident, Wakeling wasn't as close to Adam as he wanted to be. The father lived in California, the son in England. "But," says Wakeling, "as he grew up and became more of a teenager, we were talking more on the phone. He was planning on coming here and playing a few shows with the band before the accident. I was going to teach him the ropes. He was a good guitar player."

Dave tries to frame the accident - and Adam's slow, slow but measurable recovery - in terms of a possible renaissance. He still believes Adam can recover some of his skill sets as a musician. It's tricky business to let anyone - particularly a son - heal at his own rate.

"Most people with tragedy close at hand, we pretend everything is fine, but most of us have got a bag of grief dragging behind us. I suppose that's why you get the first half of life to learn about the unlimited possibilities of life," says Dave, "And the second half to learn about the limitations. If you're lucky."